Bruce Wayne
Bruce Wayne '''was the main protagonist of ''The Dark Knight Trilogy, ''described as a billionaire environment and military defense developer who witnessed his parent's murder at age 8, and later traveled the world for seven years to seek the means to fight injustice, fear, and chaos before returning to Gotham City to become '''Batman, a bat-masked vigilante hailed as the city's "Dark Knight", who dedicated himself to protecting it from its criminal underworld at night as a means to uphold justice, hope, and order. Biography Origin and Early Life Born on October 13th, 1975, in Gotham City to Thomas Wayne, a billionaire environment and military defense developer employed as a doctor, and Martha Kane-Wayne, an Irish-Catholic debutante, Bruce Wayne grew up home-schooled on his parents' Wayne Manor estate (since there was no public school anywhere near the estate) apart from them and their trusted butler Alfred Pennyworth. Although the only child in the house, his loneliness eventually changed during his fourth birthday, when his parents brought in other children for him to befriend, but most spent his party running around and yelling. This left Bruce in a best friendship with the only well-behaved child among them, Rachel Dawes, who was the daughter of the mansion's housekeeper and lived in housing unit nearby. Despite having play dates with the other kid over the next three years, he secretly wished to stay away from some except Rachel, who was the friend he saw the most. One day at age 8, while playing with her in the garden greenhouse, Bruce fell down a dry well and into a cave, where he was attacked by a swarm of bats. His father rescued him, though Bruce developed a crippling fear of bats; the senior Wayne comforted his son by telling him that though people fall, they always have the strength to get up. Later, Bruce accompanied his parents into the city to see a new monorail system they built that just opened up for the public. Throughout the ride, his parents explained that Gotham was suffering from an economic downturn and enduring deeper into very hard times. To help its citizens, his father nearly bankrupted his company, Wayne Enterprises, to build the monorails to unite the city, with Wayne Tower as the system central core, but it didn't seem enough. While watching a performance of Mefistofele ''at the Gotham Opera House nearby with both his parents, Bruce got frightened by a scene featuring a bat-like monster (which reminded him of the bats that attacked him in the well) and asked to leave. Once outside, the family was confronted by a mugger named Joe Chill, who shot both of Bruce's parents for dead for causing the depression to drive him out of his job and fled just as police patrol showed up to shelter the now orphaned boy, whose father's last words advised him not to be afraid. At Gotham Central Police Headquarters, one of the patrolmen, Det. Sgt. Jim Gordon, did his best to comfort Bruce with a coat while Police Lt. Gillian Loeb was able to capture Chill. Taken back home to watch as his parents' bodies were buried outside, a distraught Bruce was left cared for by Alfred, who arranged that he won't be taken into social service care. He blamed himself for his parents' murder: if had he not been frightened, the Waynes would not have encountered Chill, though Alfred assured him it was no one's fault but Chill's. At age 12, Bruce's home-school days ended when he inherited enough money from his ancestors to give himself a first-class education and attend Mark Twain High School in Ossaville, a town closer to Gotham. When the principal told Alfred that there was nothing more the school staff could give the boy, Bruce was scheduled to do his schoolwork with a series of tutors. His favorite subject was drama since he loved to read plays, and asked Alfred a lot of questions about it when he learned that the butler was a child actor while growing up in England. At age 14, Bruce became interested in sports when he learned of a teen soccer league that just formed in the neighborhood. Although not enrolled in any of the public schools, he was somehow able to join one of the teams but quit after his second practice since he probably wasn't the locker room type. But Bruce still had an interest in other sports, and at age 16, he asked Alfred if they could try skiing. Having learned of a ski resort in Vermont, the old butler phoned for reservations at a nearby lodge for their trip. Driving there, however, became hazardous when he and Bruce were caught in the middle of a blizzard, so they didn't check into the lodge until ten when the resort was already closed and scheduled to be reopened at around six in the morning. While Alfred relaxed at the lounge, Bruce decided to ski alone and sneaked out of their room before hiking to the resort in his skiing equipment. But right when he started sliding out of control down the mountain, a night watchman caught him in the act and called the rescue patrol, who found Bruce unconscious at the bottom of a shallow gorge with a bloody gash across his forehead, one of his skis lying in two pieces nearby and the other canting his leg in an unnatural angle. He was taken back to the lodge with a cast for his leg and bandage on his forehead and rested in bed until Alfred came to check on him. Because Bruce had a broken leg and slight concussion, a doctor who Alfred conferred with concluded that if the butler wanted to take the boy back to Gotham, he would need proper transportation. So, Alfred purchased twin-rotor Sikorsky helicopter to return home with the bandaged Bruce, setting it down on a field next to Wayne Manor. That following week, the bandages came off, and the Wayne family physician pronounced the young Wayne intact again. Bruce never thought of going skiing ever since, but his interests shifted other athletics. He ordered a complete set of Olympic-grade gymnastics gear and spent most of the summer with an instructor learning how to use them. He swam in the Olympic-size pool dug behind the garden before breakfast and lifted weights for several months, but was never able to do archery or mediocre skating. Rachel sometimes joined him at the manor to swim, jump on the trampoline or hang out. Bruce enjoyed the visits until he left the city at age 17 to attend Princeton University, where he studied Jungian archetypes and mono-myths. But he considered such topics absolutely nonessential to any conceivable life he wanted to lead if it wasn't plain foolish. During a class break one fatal morning, Bruce waited under a clock tower at the campus center for a cute girl from his advanced calculus class, who promised to meet him there so he could lend her his notes in exchange for buying him coffee. She never showed, and he found his mind returning to the class he just finished, mainly on the story of Siddhartha that was told. Following his graduation and a car race that he won in Missouri, the young Wayne returned to Gotham and turned down his arranged inheritance of Wayne Manor's ownership since it became a reminder of everything he lost, decided to demolish the foundation just the way he felt it should be if he had his way. He let his heart weigh him down even more that afternoon, when he learned that Chill's prison sentence was being suspended in exchange for his testimony against local mobster Carmine Falcone, with who he ha shared a cell. Intent on ensuring Chill didn't become reminder of disgrace under the eyes of the Wayne empire for what he did to his parents, Bruce waited outside the courtroom of Gotham District Courthouse with a gun under his sleeve to shoot and kill him with, but an assassin of Falcone's posing as a reporter did so first. Rachel, who was now the city's Assistant District Attorney, drove him to an alleyway in front of Falcone's restaurant to show him that things have grown much worse since the depression when Falcone rose to power from the criminal underworld, flooding the city with organized crime, and Chill would have been the justice system's ace in the hole against him. Bruce dismissed that idea by telling her about his foiled plan, and she expressed disgust for his attempt to carry out blind vengeance without regard for justice, telling him that his father would be ashamed. Realizing she was right, he threw the gun into the harbor and confronted Falcone, who told him that he was ignorant of the nature of crime and he would never be able to face up against criminals as he didn't understand their world. Hoping to prove him wrong, Bruce got on a ship at the docks intending to travel the world in order to gain an understanding of the criminal mind and seek the means of fighting injustice, becoming part of the criminal underworld as a result. Spending the first eighteen months as part of the ship's crew, he slept on rags at a corner of the engine room, ate what was left of everyone else's food and did work on deck by lifting heavy crate, pulling at cables, scraping the paint off the hull and cleaning gunk from the bilges. Many of his much bigger and powerful crewmates, most notably the ship's bosun Hector, often tormented Bruce out of his witts, with each attack serving as a lesson. As the ship docked two miles offshore from Hong Kong, Bruce was sent on a dinghy to pick up a package from a Chinese national and return it to the ship. He waited until dawn at a small fisherman's pier that he tied his dinghy, but the package man never arrived and the freighter was gone. Luckily, the lost business heir was able to leave Hong Kong by sneaking into the engine room of a luxury liner and stowing away until it docked in Sydney. While there, he met with a young American named Zachary Dabb and helped him do charity work with the Aborigines, teaching the traveling billionaire a lesson on not to count on preparations in receiving gifts. Leaving that following week on a ship that dropped him off in Tanga, Bruce wandered the filthy marketplace and stopped by a fruit vendor, stealing a plum from the basket and escaping down an alleyway to give it to a poor boy to finish. Shortly later, he got himself by a tramp steamer, and in the following months journeyed through a lot of Africa and some of Asia until settling down in North Korea. There, he accepted training in Kuk Sool Won under a master who was about to retire in the Pujanryang Mountains before moving on to South Korea, joining a gang of smugglers running flights into Pyongyang below the radar and promising to someday hire them as a flight crew. Jumping off the ship in Marrakesh, Bruce slept under a bridge for a couple of nights and signed onto a tanker bound for Great Britain. Upon arrival, he hung around London long enough to learn how to steal cars from the ship's cook, then shipped out on another freighter and found himself in Shanghai. One of the deckhands, nicknamed Stocky, had a way to make quick and easy money, which an interested Bruce saw as an opportunity to understand the kind of human deprived of the cherished. Together, they took a taxi to an airport on the city outskirts, where the job was to hijack a truck full of crates being loaded onto it by laborers, but Bruce began to feel fear of preparing to commit a crime for the first time and was exhilarated by it. The plan eventually succeeded, but both he and Stocky were cornered and arrested in a warehouse for their theft (ironically of Wayne Enterprises cargo, which the crates actually were) by a police squad who sent Bruce off to a Bhutanese prison, where he brawled with the inmates. Batman Begins Training and Return Home On his last day in the jail, a man named Henri Ducard visited Bruce and invited him to join an elite vigilante group, the League of Shadows, led by Ra's al Ghul. Bruce was freed and traveled up a mountain to the League's headquarters to begin his training, first stumbling upon a rare blue flower growing near the temple that Ducard told him to pick up along the way. Throughout the time being, Bruce was taught the will to act against corruption and mind his surroundings, which Ducard explained made the death of his parents his father's fault, overcoming his fears in the process. But when he was ordered to execute a criminal as his initiation, Bruce learned that the League was intending to use him to commit urbicide on Gotham, believing it has reached the point of its decadent corruption and that its destruction was necessary to restore the world to balance. In response, he refused their cause and escaped by lighting the League's temple on fire, killing Ra's in the process. Bruce rescued an unconscious Ducard from the wreckage and left him to recover at a village, where the village doctor promised to tell him that his new pupil saved his life. As he exited the village, he bumped into the same boy from Tanga, who gave him a clay bowl of rice and bread as a gift in exchange for the plum. The young billionaire continued begging for food and money until he had enough to make a telephone call to Alfred in the United States. By the time he arrived in Kathmandu two days later after stopping at Hector's place, he walked onto a landing strip as the Wayne Enterprises jet carrying Alfred landed and boarded it when the butler saw him. Throughout the plane ride back to Gotham, Bruce shared his idea to fight crime, hoping to show Gothamites that their city doesn't belong to crime and corruption. Alfred agreed to this by saying that during the depression, Bruce's parents believed that the example their monorail system represented would inspire the wealthy of Gotham to save their city, and in a way, their murders shocked the wealthy and powerful into action to do so. In Bruce's opinion, his idea may not be put in place as the Waynes' son, but as a symbol which he could be incorruptible, everlasting, and terrifying. Alfred assumed that as his master is taking on the criminal underworld, the symbol must be a persona meant to protect those he cared about, who he implied might not believe Bruce to be coming back after being gone for seven years; as it turned out, Wayne Enterprises' CEO, William Earle, declared Bruce dead to liquidate his shareholding (which had brought in an enormous capital) and take the company public, but Bruce was glad to have left the rest to Alfred. The plane refueled itself once in three days before reaching its destination back in Gotham City, and Bruce often wondered what dramas have been occurring on the city streets. Overcoming His Worst Fear Retaking residence in Wayne Manor, the last of the Waynes planned on making his return known to Gotham but decided to first accomplish a few things without being scrutinized by gossip hounds, such as investigating the exact nature of the League of Shadows. Alfred spent the first five days back looking up the society in various libraries and universities, but when he met Bruce in a library on the sixth day, the butler implied that the reason why there was a lack of info on it was that some doubt on the League's existence. So Bruce headed to Gotham University to meet with its chief researcher, Sandra Flanders, to see if she could find anything about Ra's and his elite since she enjoyed challenges. In the sparse information collected from Alfred, he came to learn that the League of Shadows was in existence for centuries, as mentioned by a piece of parchment copied from an Irish, a fragment sent from Paris to Berlin at the height of the French Revolution, a cryptic message sent from a clothier in London to a Manchester sea captain in 1866 and a monograph on secret societies done by an Oxford don in the early 20th century. Flanders' information, on the other hand, showed the translation of Ra's' name in Arabic ("Head of the Demon") and mentioned a story about Ra's himself written on a parchment that was acquired from North Africa and translated by an eccentric collector named Berthold Cavally, who died in a house fire in 1952 and the story was saved from the ashes by his nephew James and displayed at the Olympus Gallery in New York City. Using Alfred's credit card number, Bruce made a reservation for a plane trip there and a hotel stay in the Manhattan Plaza. At the gallery, the patrons refused to offer the parchment since it was being used to honor James Cavally's death in a plane crash that happened overnight, and one of the auctioneers, Wesley Carter, explained it couldn't be sold unless the patrons hear from Cavally's lawyers. But Bruce predicted that they would say no about selling the parchment and simply took it later that afternoon, sneaking his way out of the building to the rooftop undetected. Arriving back in Gotham, he and Alfred sat down in the Wayne Manor kitchen and saw the Cavally-discovered story theorized that Ra's was once a physician who lived centuries ago and was implored to save the son of an Arabian ruler known the Salimbok from death. He succeeded by lowering the prince into a death-reviving pit that drove him to the edge of insanity, killing the Physician's wife Sora. The furious Samlimbok had the Physician imprisoned with his wife's corpse in a cage lowered deep into another pit in the desert, but when the Physician escaped and bathed in his own stenchful pit, the substance within gave him immortal life. Bruce found it hard to believe but nonetheless moved onto investigating key individuals in Gotham's justice system. He started this objection by spying on Gordon from a tailor shop as the sergeant and his corrupt partner, Det. Arnold Flass was stopping at a liquor store, and then on Rachel, as she was talking with her boss, District Attorney Carl Finch, were discussing at the courthouse about Falcone's buy on half of the city. While listing much about them from newspaper articles in the manor's living room, he spotted a giant bat flying overhead. This reminded Bruce of the bats he encountered in the well and headed down there into the caves below to overcome his worst fear. The bats living down inside that he was afraid of fluttered around him and welcomed him as an old friend to their home as Bruce became inspired by them to make the symbol he discussed with Alfred earlier into a vigilante persona, which he later called "the Batman". Becoming The Bat With his worst fear overcome, the young industrial heir decided that it was time to reestablish his connections to Wayne Enterprises. He arrived at Wayne Tower the next morning to find Earle at a board meeting about "what Thomas Wayne would have done", but checked in with the secretary, Jessica, to wait and see him. Jessica was pretty surprised to see Thomas Wayne's son in front of her and asked him to teach her indoor golf, thus making Earle frustrated after calling her on the comm twice yet shocked to come out of the meeting room to see Bruce alive. As word spread around Gotham about Bruce's return, he and Earle sat down and discussed the company going public. Bruce offered to be handsomely rewarded with his shares, but instead of looking to interfere with the corporation's ownership, he hoped to apply for a job within it. He asked to start at the Applied Sciences Division, and Earle made cheers to welcome the young Wayne home. While down at the workplace, the division's chief activist, former board member Lucius Fox, who helped build Gotham's monorail system with Bruce's father, introduced Bruce to many environmental and defense prototypes not in production, such as a caviler utility harness, a gas-powered magnetic grapple gun, and a bullet-proof Nomex survival suit made of caviler bi-weave. Finding the equipment useful for his mission as Batman, Bruce requested to borrow it for spelunking. He didn't want Earle to know about him borrowing such stuff, but the way Fox saw it, the equipment belonged to the billionaire anyway. With Alfred's help, Bruce began construction on a secret base inside the Batcave, and the butler showed him a secret elevator leading from the cave up to Wayne Manor, explaining that his young master's great-great-grandfather used it to hide escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War. To turn his new caviler suit into Batman's self-styled "Batsuit", Bruce upgraded it with unique gauntlets given to him during his League of Shadows training and spray-painted all black without carvings to make it unrecognizable to the Wayne Board, but first needed a bat mask to conceal his identity. Alfred suggested that if they ordered the main part of the mask's cowl from Singapore via a shell corporation, they would put it together from a large order to avoid suspicion. Testing his suit and harness on his first night out as a vigilante, Bruce used it to break into Gordon's office at the police station to ask him about Falcone's criminal operation to bring a shipment of drugs into the city every week and the Gotham City Police Department's inability to stop him. With the back of his head pressed on by a common office stapler (which was thought to be a pistol), Gordon explained without turning his head that he's paid up with the right people, and the only possible methods against would leverage from corrupt District Court Judge Faden, whose best friendship with Falcone got him listed on the crimelord's payroll, and an assistant DA to provide it for prosecution. Bruce realized immediately that the DA in question could only be Rachel, and suggested that they form an alliance, but Gordon believed him to be "just some nut" and chased him alongside two other cops up to the roof of the building. Luckily, the ski-masked billionaire escaped their gunshots by soaring into the air, but since the suit didn't have wings, he ended up falling headfirst into the railing of another fire escape which collapsed in his grasp. Realizing that the bat was to become was going to need wings, Bruce returned to Applied Sciences to request lightweight fabric to use for what he claimed was base-jumping. Knowing just the thing, Fox introduced him to a sheet of black "memory cloth" activated by electric currents from a thick canvas glove to change shape, but though Bruce thought the activist might be uncomfortable with the unusual requests, Fox replied that he didn't really care. So the younger man borrowed it anyway, but in addition asked to have a directional microphone that he would later incorporate into Batman's mask and test out an armored vehicle that caught his eye which Fox called "the Tumbler", purchasing the latter in black. Later that night, Bruce began to test the microphone by using it to eavesdrop on a conversation between Falcone and Flass, in which the mob boss mentioned that the last of his drug shipments would be arriving at the docks on Thursday evening and asked the cop to meet him there. When Flass put in that word on the streets that Rachel was sniffing around in their operation, he and Falcone plotted to get her out of the way by having her mugged and assassinated. As soon as their shipment from Singapore arrived, Bruce and Alfred spent the next three days testing the thousand batter helmet-like bat masks to see if one of them was unbreakable enough, which one was. In addition, Bruce added to the Batsuit a utility belt cut from the harness and hooked the grapple guns in its buckle holsters, sewed for the canvas gloves electrical contacts in the fingers powered by a tiny but powerful battery on the wrists' undersides to straighten out the memory cloth, and carved from metal a set custom-made bat-shaped boomerangs that he dubbed Batarangs so that his criminal targets could share his dread. With the same bat design spray-painted on the suit's chest, the construction of Batman was complete, but the drug shipment arrival was only a week away. So, the young billionaire decided to wait by leaving again for a brief vacation in northern California, where he saw sights in and around San Francisco and went hang gliding on Mt. Tamalpais for a few days. He did, though, think it as a mistake to leak his hang gliding plans since it would attract attention to the abilities he wanted to be kept hidden. But to his relief when he returned to Gotham by a commercial carrier, no one saw him stop at several Falcone-owned areas to install tiny microphones on the following night. At his last stop, located in Falcone's apartment near the theater district, Bruce listened as Falcone announced from inside that the next night was when the shipment would be docking, then went back to the Batcave to prepare Batman for his strike. Once the ship docked and the Falcone Crime Family started unloading it, Batman spied on Falcone as he entrusted the drugs sewn inside stuffed bears to his men for them to take to their buyers and the drugs sewn inside stuffed rabbits to Flass for a purpose that the vigilante didn't quite hear. Wasting no time, Batman proceeded to disrupt the shipment, first making the thugs aware of his presence by pulling one of them, Steiss, into one of the open crates and descended upon two more, Bigger and Alfie. Finally emerging in the sight of the Falcone's remaining men, a firefight broke out and Batman was able to subdue every thug. Falcone tried to escape but found his limousine driver unconscious, leaving the vigilante on his heels enough time to grab him from inside and head-butt him, knocking him out. Leaving the mobster tied to a searchlight near his bound thugs which formed a makeshift Bat-Signal, Batman arrived at a monorail station and disrupted the rest of the crime family's attempt on Rachel's life, leaving her with the leverage she was looking for against Faden. By the time the police rounded up the Falcone crime family, Gordon began to take Batman's idea for an alliance seriously, and the vigilante watched from atop the district courthouse as millions of Gotham citizens saw him as their new hero. Investigating The Fear Toxin Shipment Batman's theatrics that night made quite an impression around the city, but a few of the police and other officials were not very impressed that someone was taking the law in their own hands and being glorified by it. Though theatrics were sharp weapons to Bruce, Alfred suggested that they may be too sharp if it left serious injuries from his nights as Batman and get some of the billionaire's friends to wonder what he does for his time and money. Later the next day, when Earle invited Bruce to join him for dinner at Puccio's, the young Wayne drove there in his Lamborghini Murciélago LP640 with two beautiful young European women, Kiki and Soozey, as a company. While talking about Batman's achievement and the police's "jealousy" of it with Earle and his friends, Bruce let Kiki and Soozey swim an inside pool nearby, but even though a maitre'd told him that they couldn't go in since the pool was a decoration and they didn't have swimwear, he told the waiter that he was going to make some changes before signing a check for ownership of the restaurant on the spot and joining the two women for their swim. On their way back to the Lamborghini, the three passed Rachel, who arrived for a casual blind date. Bruce tried to convince her that he wasn't who he seemed to be with his behavior, but she noted that one isn't only who they are on the inside, but also how they act. Suiting up again later that night, Batman stopped at Gordon's house while Gordon himself was taking out the trash. As the cop implied that organized was getting jumpy since the vigilante stood up against Falcone, to which Batman complied that it was a start by adding in Falcone's deal with Flass on splitting the drug shipment in half so that those in toy bears went to the dealers, and that he might get the answer for Gordon on where those in toy rabbits went from Flass. Before he left to do so, however, Batman was warned that the now Police Commissioner Loeb set up a massive task force to hunt him in his belief that the vigilante was dangerous, despite Gordon's belief that the crime-fighter was probably trying to help. Cornering Flass in an alleyway and hoisting him up 70 feet into the air with a cable, the bat-costumed man interrogated the corrupt cop until the latter finally explained that Falcone had to drugs driven to "special customers" for a couple of days before they went to the dealers, because there was something hidden within them that they required for an unknown purpose. When Batman asked what that was, Flass blurted out that he never went to the drop-off since it was in the Narrows, where cops only went when they were in force. Releasing Flass from the cable, Batman headed to the decaying river island and pinpointed drug drop-off as the apartment of Dr. Jonathan Crane, a corrupt psycho-pharmacologist and chief administrator at the neighboring Arkham Asylum on Falcone's payroll. Before he could get his hands on the "unusual" drugs kept inside though, Crane came in with two members of his gang and told them to burn the evidence. The vigilante hiding in the shadows knocked both men out before they could do anything, only to be stopped when Crane came up from behind in a burlap gas mask, sprayed him with a powerful hallucinogen made from an organic compound within the drugs which he called "Fear Toxin", and lit him on fire with a cigarette lighter. Batman narrowly escaped with his life and mind intact by jumping out the window washing the flames off in rain, but the hallucination from the Fear Toxin was too great that he called Alfred and told him to come to pick him up. The hallucinations continued throughout the car ride home, but when Bruce awoke to find himself in bed on his 30th birthday two days later, Alfred had already used an anti-toxin developed by Fox to save him. Though Fox believed that his employer was simply getting himself drugged at nightclubs, Bruce asked if he could produce more of the cure. Rachel came over two hours later to drop off her present to him but insisted on not coming to the party due to DA work she had to catch up on, eventually leaving shortly afterward after receiving a call from her office saying that Crane had just transferred Falcone to Arkham on suicide watch. Concerned, Bruce left the festivities to Alfred and suited up to follow her to the asylum to find out Crane's scheme. There, Batman listened through his microphone as Rachel observed Falcone's antics (such as the mob boss' mutters of the sadist conspirator persona Crane used for his burlap mask, "the Scarecrow") and accused Crane of corruption, but the sadistic psychiatrist gained the upper hand by taking her down to the nuthouse basement and showing her that he was experimenting the toxin, which was lethal in vapor form, on his patients and having them pipe it into the city water supply for his mysterious employer. Rachel tried to escape in an elevator, but the Scarecrow blocked her exit, poisoned her with the toxin and took her back downstairs as a captive. Batman saved her by subduing the Scarecrow's gang and attacked the Scarecrow himself by ripping off his mask and spraying him with his own poison, damaging the rest of his sanity. But right when he was interrogating Crane about his employer, who the psychiatrist claimed was the supposed dead Ra's al Ghul, the police arrived after receiving a call from one of the gang members and surrounding the asylum, so the vigilante carried Rachel to the rafters and met with Gordon up there once he entered the building first. Explaining what had happened, Batman insisted on giving her the anti-toxin when he got back to the Batcave, and instructed the sergeant to carry the assistant DA downstairs to a side alleyway while the bat-costumed man signaled a swarm of bats to keep the policemen outside and SWAT team coming into the asylum busy while he made his exit. Then, the vigilante recollected Rachel from Gordon and put her into the parked Tumbler as they sped off from the Narrows. Few policemen led by Flass sped after him in a messy chase leading out of the city, only to lose sight of the vehicle when it drove into a clearing underneath an unfinished elevated road. After administering the antidote to Rachel in the Batcave, Batman told her that she'll wake up at home with two vials of it for her to give to Gordon – one for inoculating himself and the other for mass-production. As she fell asleep, he thought to himself about loving such a person who he knew his whole life despite it assuming certain trust or fidelity obligations, such as abandoning what he began or subjecting her to continuing danger. Battle Against An Old Mentor Heading upstairs to Wayne Manor, Bruce instructed Alfred to drive the still-sleeping Rachel while he attended to the party guests. The birthday celebration was at full swing over for at least three hours until the now 30-year-old billionaire came face to face with unexpected guests from his travels; a group of League of Shadows ninjas led by Ducard, who revealed himself to be the real Ra's al Ghul, and that the man killed earlier was a decoy. In response, Bruce dismissed his guests by faking a drunk outburst and insulting them, much to the League's amusement despite it being pointless since Batman's heroism at Arkham almost delayed their plan. When his student to came the realize that the Scarecrow really was working for them after all, Ra's explained that the psychiatrist's toxin (which was derived from the organic compound found in the blue flower) was to be their method of destroying Gotham by distributing it via the city's water supply and releasing it on the population so its citizens would destroy their own city in a state of panic. He elaborated on this by adding in that the exploits the League made throughout history were to correct humanity's recurring fits of decadence. Bruce tried convincing him that Gotham wasn't beyond saving and and the corrupt should be given second chances, but Ra's signaled his men into setting the manor on fire and retorted that mankind would only see the error of their corrupt nature if an example was made out of the decadent of them, to which they would witness in horror once its most corrupt city destroyed itself and the League's way to move them back to harmony through Gotham proved to be unstoppable than last time; their last attack on the city was through the use of economics that eventually started the depression, but when Bruce's parents used his monorail system to make things better, their murders galvanized their wealthy allies into helping the city rebuild itself and Gotham, much to the League's frustration, limped on ever since. With the vigilante society now back to finish the job, no misguided idealists would be able to interfere, and Ra's warned that whoever successfully tried would get killed from behind. Bruce fought briefly with Ra's and his companions in the League, vowing to stop them, but was knocked down unconscious by falling debris. When he awoke a few minutes later, most of the League had already left, and Alfred had just returned and got past the League ninjas guarding the entrances to the burning mansion. Getting his master up from under the debris, the butler helped him into the elevator leading to the Batcave just as Wayne Manor tumbled in ruins above them. Even though all hope was lost to the wounded billionaire, his guardian reminded him of what his father said about always having the strength to get up, indicating that he hadn't given up on his young master. Batman returned to the Narrows in the Tumbler to see that the League had already set many psychotic criminals, including the Scarecrow, free from Arkham and started vaporizing the fear toxin onto the neighborhood with a microwave emitter stolen from Wayne Enterprises. With most of the riot police battling who the lunatics already exposed to the drug, he met with Gordon, who was already given the antitoxin from Rachel, and predicted to him that the League were planning to spread the poison on the entire city by transporting the emitter on the elevated monorail train to Wayne Tower, causing a chain reaction within the city's central water-hub, located beneath the building, that would vaporize the rest of Gotham's water supply. In order to stop them, the vigilante left Gordon in control of the Tumbler before flying to the Narrows monorail station. Along the way, he spotted Rachel being chased alongside a little boy by inmates led by Falcone assassin Victor Zsasz and saved their lives by lifting them up onto a rooftop. Rachel stopped him for a second to ask who he really was underneath his mask, and Batman repeated what she said about one not only being who they are on the inside but also how they act, indirectly hinting his identity to her. By the time he landed at the station, the vaporizer was already aboard the monorail, and Ra's had four of his ninjas keep his vigilante pupil busy as he boarded to guide the train to its destination. Batman took down three of the warriors, but the last one tackled him over the monorail support's side railing onto the street, where a mob of drugged Narrows inhabitants attacked him. Luckily, he was able to reach for his grapple gun and aim it at the train carrying Ra's and the emitter, which pulled him along as it sped out of the incapacitated island, magnetizing the toxin with it and with Gordon racing ahead in the Tumbler. Batman entered the front monorail cart via crashing into a passenger-side window and engaged Ra's in battle, where he broke his master's sword with the scallops of his gauntlets and kicked him against the vaporizer before turning to the driver's seat to slow the train's with the brake lever. However, Ra's came from behind and jammed the mechanism with the cane and overwhelmed his pupil by hurling with him over the microwave emitter and pinning him down. Though all hoped seemed lost for Batman as the monorail neared Wayne Tower's train station, the vigilante replied to his mentor's mocks about not being able to fight injustice in Gotham nor preventing the city's destruction by saying that there was no need to stop the train, and broke free of the martial artist's grasp just as Gordon reached the base of the building and toppled the elevated train line using the Tumbler's missiles, demonstrating Ra's' lesson on minding one's own surroundings. Now finally learning to do the necessary, Batman refused to kill his old mentor nor bother to save him, and escaped by flying out of train car's imploded back door and into the night, leaving Ra's still aboard as the train missed the tower's monorail system entrance and crash to the ground. The train was subsequently in an explosion caused by the microwave emitter overloaded power core, killing him and stopping fear toxin vaporization spreading from the Narrows to the crash site. Returning Gotham To Normal Throughout the rest of the night, Batman became a public hero when his actions to stop the fear toxin from getting vaporized all over Gotham made the front page of the newspapers. But since the Tumbler was left in Gordon's possession, the vigilante had Alfred come pick him up and called Fox on the butler's car phone to issue some instructions that would earn Bruce the controlling share as Wayne Enterprises and make the activist the company's new CEO, much to Fox's delight. Once home, Alfred helped his young master into the guesthouse, where Bruce changed out of the Batsuit and had a cup of Earl Grey with him for the last half hour before morning came. When Earle found out about being replaced with Fox once he saw the activist running a board meeting, the board called Bruce so that he could explain to the former CEO that as long as his company's future was secured, his roundabout means to ensure that projects like the microwave emitter didn't fall into the wrong hands would be what his father would have done to make Gotham a better and more moderate place. Earle was astounded to hear this, and received a quip from Fox, "Didn't you get the memo?". Once they reached the guesthouse after breakfast at a restaurant, Bruce asked Alfred if they could visit what was left of the manor, where the butler oversaw the start of the mansion's reconstruction while his billionaire master sealed the dry well leading to the Batcave up with wooden boards and nails to prevent any of the construction workers from falling into it. Rachel dropped by as he was finishing up on the well and apologized for the terrible things she said to him on the day Chill died. Bruce, however, excepted them as true things because they helped him find his regard for justice, to which Rachel admitted that when she heard that her childhood best friend was back, she started to hope for their future marriage. But then she found out about his vigilante persona and concluded that the wealthy boy she dated her whole life never spiritually returned, thus telling Bruce that if Gotham no longer needed Batman, they would be together. The young couple went up to the mansion ruins, where Bruce found his father's stethoscope among the ashes and decided to rebuild the foundation just the way it was. He eventually agreed on Alfred's suggestion on making improvements in the Southeast corner, and Rachel expressed joy for his effort to carry out heroic justice with regard for the law, telling him that his father would be proud. Later that night, Batman dropped by at Gordon's house to ask if the cop's forensics team finished examining the monorail car. In response, the sergeant informed him that everything was inconclusive due to something inside the vaporizer giving off extreme heat and causing the train to explode. Mostly everything was melted into slag but no human remains could be found, indicating that they were burned into dust. After disappearing from the cop's sight and regaining possession of the Tumbler from him, the vigilante drove downtown and perched on a Wayne Tower ledge to think about their conversation for an hour, including why there were no surprises. Although he saw the fire from the monorail car and knew it must've destroyed everything inside, he was almost certain that Ra's perished in the explosion and wondered about the chances that he hadn't. For almost a month, Batman was nothing but an empty costume hanging in the cave below the blackened ruins of the once-grand Wayne Manor, and Bruce stayed away from it and from Gotham City, keeping to the guesthouse he shared with Alfred and spending every week reading books recommended by Sandra Flanders. One night, finally, he left the guesthouse and picked his way through the mansion remains until he came to the caverns secret entrance. Alfred watched from an upstairs window as his master crossed the lawn and followed after some hesitation, asking if he decided to bring his vigilante persona back to life and join the urban legends. Bruce at first was reluctant to but observed why he should despite his butler's warnings of the greatest danger; that he should able to relinquish Batman before aging into a state where he would be a bit slower and not quite as agile nor strong, otherwise he would be grievously injured or humiliated. Once removed from the Batcave, Batman continued his nightly patrols as winter came early to Gotham. On one such frosty night, newly-promoted Lieutenant Gordon unveiled a Bat-Signal for the police department to summon Batman when needed and met with the vigilante on the police station's roof near the floodlight to discuss the effects that his appearance had on the city. Loeb had finally disbanded the task force hunting the bat-masked figure after becoming amazed of what saving the city did for his image, and the impact of the Batman's actions started sending terror through Gotham's criminal underworld, with corrupt authorities running scared and hope on the streets. However, the city had suffered an unstable tear in its infrastructure; the Narrows was lost to its madness and half of the lunatics released from Arkham by the League of Shadows, including the Scarecrow, remained at large. Even though they will have their hands full finding them all, Batman promised that they can bring Gotham back all together but was corrected by Gordon about the escalation in crime. Apparently, Batman's presence in the city not only showed its citizens into further action on ridding their streets of corruption but also in a worsened way inspired many in the criminal underbelly to adopt similar theatrical tastes of their style. The cop gave his new vigilante friend an example of one such crime reported to have committed armed robbery and a double homicide, leaving behind Joker playing cards at the crime scenes as calling cards. Batman promised to investigate, saying that Gordon will never have to thank him for what he already did for the city, and flew off into the night. Bruce and Alfred spent the beginning of their winter vacation sealing off the Batcave themselves since no hired workmen could be trusted with not being too curious the secret within the vast caverns. Alfred made a study in the art of masonry and what he wasn't able to do in terms of physical labor. The meticulous planning and execution were done within a month, and Bruce called in architects and contractors to begin working on building an exact replica of the mansion destroyed by the fire. The builders got the foundation laid and part of the framing up when work was halted by the worst snowfall in ten years, and they agreed that winter wasn't the best time to be building. Bruce drove his Lamborghini into the city several times a month and filled the car's shotgun seat with an assortment of models actresses. None rode in the vehicle for more than a single evening, but they all received lavish gifts soon afterward. Alfred flew to England to spend Christmas with his niece and returned on New Year's Eve to have some hot chocolate with his philanthropist master. When the snowfall finally stopped at noon on New Year's Day, Bruce made his way back into the Batcave with a sledgehammer to smash the masonry seals and retrieved his ninja outfit from inside. With Alfred watching, he buried a stain of Ra's blood gotten on the clothing into the ground next to his parents' graves so he could mourn the together for the life all three of them gave him, bowing his head until the beginning of his vigilante ego's legend ended with the sky darkening. ''Batman: Gotham Knight ''The Dark Knight In Gotham City, the Joker robs a mob-owned bank with his accomplices, whom he tricks into killing each other. That night, Batman interrupts a meeting between the Chechen and the Scarecrow, but suffers wounds from the Chechen's dogs, allowing the Chechen to escape and prompting Batman to redesign his batsuit. Batman and Lieutenant James Gordon contemplate including new district attorney Harvey Dent in their plan to eradicate the mob, as he could be the public hero Batman cannot be. However, Batman wonders if Dent can be trusted. Bruce runs into Rachel Dawes and Dent, who are dating, and after talking to Dent, he realizes he is sincere and decides to host a fundraiser for him. Mob bosses Sal Maroni, Gambol and the Chechen meet with other underworld gangsters to discuss both Batman and Dent. Lau, a Chinese mafia accountant, informs them that he has hidden their money and fled to Hong Kong in an attempt to pre-empt Gordon's plan to seize the mobsters' funds. The Joker arrives unexpectedly, offering to kill Batman in return for half of the mob's money, an offer the mobsters refuse. In Hong Kong, Batman captures Lau and delivers him to the Gotham City police, where Lau agrees to testify against the mob. In retaliation, the mobsters hire the Joker to kill Batman and Lau. The Joker issues an ultimatum to Gotham, stating that if Batman does not reveal his identity to the public, people will die each day. When Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb, Judge Janet Surillo, who was presiding over the mob trials, and Gordon are murdered, the public's increasing pressure prompts Wayne to decide to reveal his identity. Before he can, Dent announces at a press conference that he himself is Batman and is arrested as part of a plan to draw the Joker out of hiding. The Joker attempts to ambush the police convoy carrying Dent, but Batman and Gordon, the latter whom had faked his death, intervene and capture him. In recognition of his actions, Gordon is appointed police commissioner. Later that night, Dent and Rachel disappeared. At the police station, Batman interrogates the Joker, who reveals that their police escorts were on Maroni's payroll, and have placed them in warehouses rigged with explosives on opposite sides of the city — far enough apart so that Batman cannot save them both. Batman leaves to save Rachel, while Gordon and the police head after Dent. With the aid of a smuggled bomb, the Joker escapes police custody with Lau. Batman arrives to save Rachel but instead finds Dent. Batman successfully saves Dent, but the ensuing explosion disfigures Dent's face. Gordon arrives at Rachel's location too late, and she is killed when the bomb detonates. In the hospital, Dent's grief drives him to madness. Aboard a cargo ship, the Joker burns Lau to death atop a pile of the mob's money and has the Chechen killed, before taking control of his men. The Joker goes to the hospital and convinces Dent to exact revenge on the corrupt cops and mobsters responsible for Rachel's death, as well as Batman and Gordon. The Joker frees Dent—who allows the Joker to live after flipping his coin—then blows up the hospital and hijacks a bus filled with patients. Out of the hospital, Dent goes on a personal vendetta confronting Maroni and the corrupt cops one by one, also deciding their fates with the flip of a coin. The Joker announces to the public that anyone left in Gotham at nightfall will be subject to his rule. With the bridges and tunnels out of the city closed due to a bomb threat by the Joker, authorities begin evacuating people by ferry. The Joker places explosives on two of the ferries—one ferry with convicts, who were evacuated in an effort to keep the Joker from freeing them, and the other with civilians—telling the passengers the only way to save themselves is to trigger the explosives on the other ferry; otherwise, he will destroy both at midnight. Meanwhile, Batman locates the Joker and the hostages he has taken. Realizing the Joker has disguised the hostages as his own men, Batman is forced to attack both Gordon's SWAT team and the Joker's henchmen in order to save the real hostages. Meanwhile, the Joker's plan to destroy the ferries fails after the passengers on both decide not to destroy each other. Batman locates and subdues the Joker, preventing him from destroying both ferries, but refuses to kill him. The Joker acknowledges that Batman is truly incorruptible, but that Dent was not, and that he has unleashed Dent upon the city. Leaving the Joker for the SWAT team, Batman leaves in search of Dent. At the remains of the building where Rachel died, Batman finds Dent holding Gordon and his family at gunpoint. Dent judges the innocence of Batman, himself, and Gordon's son through three coin tosses. Because of the first two flips, he shoots Batman in the abdomen and spares himself. Before Dent can determine the boy's fate, Batman, who was wearing body armor, tackles him over the side of the building. Gordon's son is saved, but Batman and Dent fall, and Dent is killed. Batman and Gordon realize that the morale of the city would suffer if Dent's murders became known. Batman persuades Gordon to preserve Dent's image by holding "Batman" responsible for the murders. Gordon destroys the Bat-Signal, and a manhunt for Batman begins. The Dark Knight Rises 8 years after the manhunt for Batman, the residents of Gotham City are living relatively peaceful lives. Organized Crime has diminished, and Bruce Wayne has "retired" from his job as Batman. Wayne is living as a recluse; In a party at Wayne Manor celebrating the Dent Act and the cleaning of Gotham city, he watches from his roof. Later, he meets a maid, Selina Kyle, who steals his mother's pearls and lifts his fingerprints, as well as kidnapping Congressman Byron Gilly. She later gives them to Phillip Stryver, an assistant to Bruce's business rival John Daggett. Bruce searches for Selina on his supercomputer in the Batcave -- which had been rebuilt -- and discuses with Alfred about his current condition and the way he's been living. John Blake, an orphan cop stops by and tells Bruce he knows who he was. He also tells him that some " details " might need help. He gets his leg checked, goes to a party where Selina is, and takes the pearls back, only to lose his car. At the same time, Miranda Tate urges him to restart the nuclear reactor project, which he shut down because he learned it could become a weapon. Later, Bane attacks the Gotham Stock Exchange and bankrupts Wayne Enterprises and Wayne. In response to this, Bruce puts back on the cape and cowl, and Batman returns to Gotham City. Batman is pursued by the entire police force after an attempt to stop Bane - escaping with the use of Lucius Fox's new invention, a winged vehicle he calls "The Bat" At this point, Alfred, concerned for Bruce, reveals he burned the letter Rachel gave him, which said that she would marry Harvey Dent, and not be with him. The result is Alfred resigning, doing so dissuade him. Bruce, concerned that Daggett would take over Wayne Enterprises, and thus the reactor, asks Miranda Tate to take over. Bruce promises the software Kyle needs to erase her criminal record, and later, Batman agrees to give it to her if she takes him to Bane, only to be betrayed. Bane and Batman fight, only for Bane to break Batman's back, and puts him in a foreign and ancient prison, where Bane reveals his intentions to destroy Gotham with the League of Shadows. As Gotham burns, the inmates reveal the story of how Ra's al Ghul's child, who was born in the prison, escaped. Bruce assumes the child is Bane. A few months later, he recovers and trains, before escaping and returning to Gotham. He gets help from all his allies (except Alfred) to stop the bomb from detonating. As Batman, he frees the cops, before they clash with Bane's forces. Batman and Bane duel once more, but Tate stabs him in an act of betrayal. She reveals herself to be Talia al Ghul, and thus the child who escaped the Pit. She reveals her plans to finish her father's work and attempts to destroy Gotham, but Gordon blocks the signal and Talia goes to find the bomb. Kyle kills Bane, and the two of them track Talia. They knock her truck down and make it crash, but she remotely destroys the reactor. With both villiains dead, Batman takes the Bomb over the bay, where it explodes. Batman and Bruce Wayne are presumed dead, but the former is honored as a hero in the eyes of Gotham City. Wayne Manor becomes an orphanage, Fox learns Bruce fixed the Bat's Autopilot, and Gordon sees the Bat-Signal fixed. Blake visits the manor, where he discovers the Bat-cave, implying that he will take on the role as Gotham's new protector. Abilities Batman is a highly skilled martial artist having been trained by the League of Shadows and Ra's al Ghul personally in ninjutsu and other martial arts, Batman has achieved such feats as single-handedly subduing a swat team and taking out a group of the league of shadows ninjas with minimal injury; even before his training with Ra's al Ghul. Bruce Wayne was able to fight an entire gang of convicts in a prison brawl with the guards locking him in solitary for the other inmates "protection". Batman is also highly intelligent, being a brilliant detective (known by some as "the world's greatest detective"), and an expert planner. He has proven himself exceptionally good at stealth being able to disappear in the middle of people's sentences and sneaking up on others unexpectedly. With his vast wealth and company, Batman has access to some of the world's greatest equipment and technology to improve his performance. Relying on intellect, detective skills, science and technology, wealth, physical prowess, and intimidation in his war on crime, Batman is a force greatly feared by Gotham's underworld. Personality Bruce Wayne is very dedicated and determined to his work of crime-fighting, sometimes employing illegal and morally dubious tactics (like torture) but ultimately for the good of Gotham. Despite his dark past and serious work, Bruce has displayed a sense of humor around his butler Alfred and a romantic side around his love-interest Rachel. Although possessing great hate and anger towards criminals, he has proven himself a very caring and selfless person, constantly putting his life on the line to save innocent lives and bringing the most dangerous criminals to justice for society's protection. Perhaps Bruce's strongest characteristic is his strong moral code to never kill, believing all men deserve a trial and to do so makes him no better than his enemies, because of this he has been noted by the Joker as being "incorruptible". Although he did let Ra's al Ghul die, coldly saying "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you", he has shown compassion for his enemies, such as when he saved his employee Mr. Reese from getting killed, who was just about to sell him out by telling the public he was Batman. Bruce Wayne has also shown himself to have a good deal of faith in people as evidenced in ''The Dark Knight when he was confident that the people on the ferries wouldn't blow each other up (which they didn't), which in contrast to the Joker believing people to be just as bad as him when under enough pressure. To the public, Bruce Wayne takes on the facade of an irresponsible, fun-seeking playboy in order to avoid suspicion of his alter-ego, while as Batman he reveals his dark, intimidating personality in the form of a bat (his childhood fear for his enemies to dread) to frighten the criminals he stands against, believing theatricality to help him seem more than a man, but a symbol. Bruce Wayne's ultimate goal is to bring order and justice to Gotham city, as opposed to the Joker who's ultimate goal is to bring chaos and anarchy. Relationships *Batman - Hero identity. *Thomas Wayne - Father. *Martha Wayne - Mother. *Alfred Pennyworth - Butler and Guardian. *Rachel Dawes - Childhood Best Friend and First Love Interest. *Jim Gordon - Friend and Ally. *Lucius Fox - Employee, friend, and technical support. *Robin John Blake - Ally and Successor. *Selina Kyle/Catwoman - Third Love Interest and Enemy turned Ally. *Ra's al Ghul/Henri Ducard - Teacher and Enemy. *Dr. Jonathan Crane/Scarecrow - Enemy. *The Joker - Enemy. *Harvey Dent/Two-Face - Friend turned Enemy. *Bane - Enemy. *Miranda Tate/Talia al Ghul - Second Love Interest and Employee turned Enemy. Bases of Operation Batcave The Batcave was Batman's base of operations. It was a cave beneath Wayne Manor. Wayne Manor Wayne Manor was Bruce's ancestral home. It was destroyed by Ra's al Ghul at the end of Batman Begins, ''but it was later rebuilt before the events of ''The Dark Knight Rises. Penthouse When Wayne Manor was destroyed, Bruce moved into a penthouse. This was where the Joker first searched for Harvey Dent and, according to Alfred, where Bruce doesn't sleep in much. Warehouse After Wayne Manor was destroyed, the Batcave cannot be used so Batman moves his operations to the Warehouse. Weapons and Equipment Batsuit: Batman wears a bat-masked "Nomex survival suit" derived from Lucius Fox's Research and Development program within Wayne Enterprises' Applied Sciences Division to conceal his identity and to frighten criminals. This particular incarnation of the Batsuit is given the most complete description ever seen in a Batman film and possibly the comic books. It was originally intended for advanced military use, but, with its $300,000 price tag, was considered to be too expensive for the United States Army and military in general. Based on an advanced infantry armor system constructed from Nomex, the first layer of protection is an undersuit with built-in temperature regulators designed to keep the wearer at a comfortable temperature in almost any condition. The second layer of protection consists of armor built over the chest, calves, thighs, arms, and back. This armor features a kevlar bi-weave that can stop slashing weapons and can also deflect any bullet short of a straight shot impact, and reinforced joints that allow maximum flexibility and mobility. The armor was then coated with a black latex material to dampen Bruce's heat signature, making him difficult to detect with night-vision equipment. Made of a graphite material, the cowl acts as a protective helmet. The cowl's Kevlar lining is supposed to be bulletproof. A manufacturing defect in the graphite used in the production of the first shipment of the cowl's components made its outer shell incapable of withstanding blunt trauma (a flaw Alfred demonstrates to Bruce Wayne using a baseball bat). Batman apparently takes on the Falcone Crime Family at the docks with the defective helmet. The second shipment was supposed to fix this problem. An advanced eavesdropping device is concealed within the cowl's right ear and enables Batman to listen in on conversations from a distance. The Batsuit is changed in the next film The Dark Knight. In this new design, the bodysuit is made of hardened kevlar plates on a titanium-dipped fiber and is broken into multiple pieces of armor over a more flexible bodysuit for greater mobility. As a trade-off, however, the flexible armor leaves Batman more vulnerable to injury from bullets or knives in favor of increased flexibility and lighter weight. The cowl of the Batsuit, which in previous film incarnations has been attached to the shoulder and neck, is now a separate component inspired by the design of motorcycle helmets, allowing the wearer to freely swivel and move his neck without moving the rest of his upper torso as was characteristic in all the previous cinematic versions of the Batsuit. Also, a strong electric current runs through it that prevents anyone except Bruce Wayne from removing it, further protecting his identity. The bat emblem is smaller than the one in Batman Begins and it is more similar to the Batman logo used in the posters. Gliding Cape: 'Batman's cape is made of "memory cloth," also developed by Fox. It is essentially flexible in its normal state but becomes semi-rigid in a fixed form (Batman's wings in the movie) when an electric current is passed through it from the microcircuits in his right glove. Bruce also adds metal gauntlets with scallops on the forearms, an innovation derived from his experience as a pupil of the League of Shadows. Mainly used to block against knives or other stabbing weapons, Bruce managed to surprise Ra's by breaking the blade of his ninjaken in multiple places with the gauntlets. Furthermore, when the Batsuit was changed in ''The Dark Knight, it does not have an external 'memory cloth' cape, but, rather, a concealed cape in compartments behind the shoulder blades, which eject, connecting to the suit's limbs to provide a hang-glider-like functionality with a bat-motif design. '''Retractable Tectonic Plates: The iconic blades on the sides of Batman's new gauntlets are retractable and are capable of firing outwards as projectiles. Sonar Goggles: The new Batsuit is equipped with "sonar-vision", where signals emitted by mobile phones are converted into images in a similar way to sonar. In order to view the said images, white lenses fold down from Batman's cowl to cover his eyes. Aesthetically this gives Batman, for the first time in a live action film, the 'white-eyed' appearance he is always depicted within the comic-books and animated series. Utility Belt: Batman wears a specialized belt to equip his crime-fighting gear. The utility belt is a modified climbing harness, with magnetized impact-resistant pouches and canisters attached to the belt at ergonomic points for ease of reach. It carries a magnetic gas-powered grapple gun, an encrypted cell phone, Batarangs, a medical kit, smoke bombs, mini-explosives, periscope, remote control for the Tumbler, mini-cam, money, and other unspecified equipment. Batman removed the belt's shoulder and chest straps because they constricted his movements. [[Batarang|'Batarang']]:' Batman uses a roughly bat-shaped throwing weapon that's name is a portmanteau of bat and boomerang. Although Batarangs are named after boomerangs, they are more similar to shurikens, fitting with Batman's training as a ninja. He used one to knock out light in ''Batman Begins. In The Dark Knight Rises, Batman uses smaller and sharper Batarangs laced with a sedative to pierce the necks of his opponents, and knock them out. '''Grappling Gun: Batman uses this special item to scale up or rappel down tall buildings, or swing between Gotham City skyscrapers on successive lines. Similar to a grappling hook and speargun, the line gun uses a strong clamp attached to a high-tensile wire for scaling surfaces and/or traversing gaps. It can be recovered by releasing the clamp and rewinding the cable. It was based on one that is designed as compact climbing gear for commando units. It is propelled with compressed air works with a magnetic Enterhaken. The thin climbing cable was tested on a load-carrying capacity of 350 lbs. High-Frequency Transponder: The special sonic device is an artifact Batman uses to summon bats. When it is not used, it is equipped in the left boot heel. When used at a lower frequency the sound can cause people to have incapacitating headaches. Vehicles * Tumbler ** Batpod *Batglider *The Bat Behind the scenes thumb|250px| *In both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises' end credits, Christian Bale is only credited with playing Bruce Wayne, and not Batman. * The first costume used in Begins was similar to the all black WB Batsuits that preceded it. He was unable to turn his head throughout the entire first film and the first third of the second. Bale became the first WB Batman able to fully turn his head when he got his second costume mid-way through the sequel. External links * Category:Characters Category:Heroes Category:Males Category:Wayne Enterprises Category:Wayne Family Category:Batman Begins Characters Category:Batman: Gotham Knight Characters Category:The Dark Knight Characters Category:The Dark Knight Rises Characters